A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF TWO OF THE THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background Statement

Language forms the fundamental function of communication. As social beings, we use it as our medium of communication to help us communicate with people that live both within and beyond our regional/geographical locations just as it is the case that other people from within and outside our environment do communicate with us. Language occurs almost wherever we come into contact with other people and will be different according to the nature of the contact. It is noted that our lives take us through a succession of activities requiring the use of language. The activities are very diverse and, what ever dialect we speak, have specific feature of language associated with them. Many activities are connected with our jobs. One may be an engineer giving instructions to a draughtsman; a lawyer advising a client; a trade union official discussing fringe benefits; a bus conductor collecting transport. Fares; A sergeant instructing a soldier; or a scientist reading a technical report. Other activities are part of our leisure. We may be playing tennis, football, or volley ball. Or relating to our home life, we may be acting as a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son or a daughter.

To acquire language in the actual sense seems to depend on the linguistic atmosphere in which the child is brought up. Skinner (1957) stresses that language is not a mental phenomenon but a behavioral one. Alllen and Burren (1971:135) hold the view that language is essentially an adventitious construct, taught by conditioning or drill and explicit explanation,, or by built-up elementary data processing procedures. "language acquisition is controlled by the condition under which it takes place and that as long as individuals are subject to the same conditions they will learn the same way", (Wilkins, 1972:169-4). This might be the reason why a child raised in Hausa speaking community will acquire Hausa language. One brought up in China acquires Chinese and vice verse incase that happens to take place.